When I first heard that Frank Miller was going to direct his own film version of The Spirit, I was originally stoked. Admittedly, I don't know a hell of a lot about The Spirit other than he was created by Will Eisner, and it features a guy in a hat and a mask who fights crime. Regardless though, I was still stoked that Frank Miller was doing it. He's the guy who wrote Sin City after all, and he helped director Robert Rodriguez create an absolutely beautiful film version of that comic. Then I saw the first teaser trailer for the film, and I started to get a little worried.
Visually, the film looks a lot like Sin City, which is fine because Sin City looked bad ass. But the dialog was weird. "The city is my mother, my lover, and I am her spirit." Um, ok, whatever. That sounds sorta creepy, but I'll go with it. It's still a superhero film afterall, so it should be good. Superheroes sometimes talk strangely, and since I don't know The Spirit at all, maybe that's how he sounds.
A little while later I saw the second trailer for the film. This one gave me a little more hope. It featured all of the women that will be in the film and it sort of portrays the Spirit as a really horny guy who can't help but sleep with every hot woman he comes across. I've got no problem with that. If I was surrounded by the women he seems to be, I'd have the same problem. Plus, the trailer shows Samuel L. Jackson with some wicked cool sideburns as well as him in a Nazi uniform. Sure, parts of the trailer look like it's going to be one weird acid trip or something, but it also looks dark and violent, which is something we sort of expect in a film by Frank Miller.
Then at the SD Comic Con this year I caught the last half of the Spirit's panel, during which they showed some more footage of the film. Specifically they showed a fight scene between The Spirit and Samuel L. Jackson. I tried finding footage of the fight online, but the leaks on youtube and other sites have been shut down so I'm going to have to try to describe it for you.
Remember the old 60's Batman TV show starring Adam West? Of course you do, you're a geek like me. Well...think back to the fight scenes from that show. Think back to the silly faces people made when they got punched, think back to the cartoonish aspect of the violence, and think back to the ridiculous props that were used in the combat. That's pretty much exactly like what this fight scene looked like. It was like a big budget version of the 60's Batman TV show.
Don't get me wrong, I have a warm place in my heart for the old Batman show. I was raised on it. But it had its time and its place. Making a movie that comes off just as campy and just as cheesy as that show is not something I (nor most other people I'm willing to bet) want to see anymore.
And if you think I'm possibly exaggerating the silliness of the fight, trust me I'm not. I swear to you, at one point in the film Sam Jackson takes a giant 8 foot long wrench that he just happens to find lying around and he uses it in a big nut shot on the Spirit. I am not, repeat NOT, making that up. The Spirit gets hit in the nuts by a giant 8 foot long wrench. And shortly after that, Sam Jackson takes a toilet and smashes it down on the Spirit's head so that his arms are trapped at his sides by the bowl. I totally felt like I was suddenly watching a live action version of a fight between Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. Yes, it was that silly.
That fight scene made me wonder if the whole film is going to be that cheesy. It made me look back on the earlier trailers and notice the inherent campyness in them too. Then today I saw these new photos from the movie that were released and I can't help but see the cheesyness in them too.
This all leads me to one inescapable conclusion. Frank Miller, for some reason that defies all reason and logic, has decided to intentionally make the Spirit movie as a campy and cliched romp that harkens back to the superhero shows of the 40's and 50's.
Did he not see the movie version of The Shadow? Or maybe even The Phantom? Does he not realize that those types of movies fail, and fail badly? Not even comics fans like those films. And it takes a lot for a comic fan not to like a movie. We're pretty accustomed to crappy versions of our beloved characters by now.
Will I still go see The Spirit when it comes out? Yeah, probably. But I'm fully walking in expecting it to suck very large amounts of ass. I hope I'm wrong.
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